Ginnie Mae has announced revised rules for issuers seeking approval of changes in their business status due to an adversarial relationship with agencies, mergers, asset transfers or a change in ownership or control. The agency has been receiving many issuer requests and they are getting complicated, according to Ted Tozer, Ginnie Mae president. Issuers must comply with the updated guidance in order to remain an eligible participant in the Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities program. The guidance took effect immediately. Previously, issuers were required to notify Ginnie Mae in writing within five days of any material adverse change in their business relationships with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA, Rural Development, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Public and Indian Housing or any other regulatory agency. Under the revised guidance, the ...

It looks like the mortgage industry is on the verge of obtaining another concession from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding enforcement of its pending integrated disclosure rule. The rule will streamline the consumer disclosures required under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. This TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule is slated to take effect Oct. 3, 2015, and will create a new regulatory regime – and perhaps a good bit of havoc in the process, at least in the short term. The anxiety over the confusion and expected delays has prompted...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a final rule to allow more lenders to qualify as smaller creditors doing business in rural and underserved areas. The final rule, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2016, amends certain mortgage rules issued by the CFPB in 2013 under the Dodd-Frank Act. Specifically, the final rule lifts the current origination limit to qualify for “small creditor” status from 500 mortgage loans annually to 2,000 mortgage loans per year – a limit that also excludes loans retained in portfolio from the 2,000-loan cap. In addition, the rule now includes...

The nation’s subservicing specialists increased their contracts by a modest 4.4 percent on a sequential basis in the second quarter of 2015, a sign that many originators would rather outsource the nitty-gritty chore of loan processing to others instead of doing it in house. Compared to the same period a year earlier, subservicing grew a more impressive 20.5 percent to $1.410 trillion, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. The increasing complexity and compliance cost of servicing make...[Includes one data table]

The CFPB is committed to helping the mortgage industry fully implement the pending TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule to the maximum extent possible, and its examination approach will focus on being “diagnostic” and “corrective,” not “gotcha” oriented, a top bureau official said during an industry conference early this week. Speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2015 regulatory compliance conference in Washington, DC, Diane Thompson, managing counsel in the bureau’s Office of Regulations, tried to reassure anxious lender representatives about the industry’s transition to a dramatically different lending environment under the new regulatory regime. “We understand that this is a major change ... that we are not going to flip some magic switch on Oct. 3 and the world will suddenly ...

As the pending Oct. 3, 2015, effective date for the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule approaches, both the bureau and industry groups issued last-minute guides and other materials to help various sectors comply as effectively as possible. The rule is intended to harmonize and integrate the disclosures required under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act; hence the term “TRID,” an acronym for the more formal TILA/RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule. Last week, on the lender front, the bureau released three supervisory publications that have been updated to reflect the new TRID effective date. They include the interagency TILA and RESPA examination procedures, developed in coordination with the members of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council Consumer ...

The CFPB recently brought enforcement actions against two large debt buyers and collectors, Encore Capital Group, in San Diego, and Portfolio Recovery Associates, in Norfolk, VA, accusing the companies of using deceptive tactics to collect bad debts. The bureau said the companies bought debts that were potentially inaccurate, lacking documentation or unenforceable. “Without verifying the debt, the companies collected payments by pressuring consumers with false statements and churning out lawsuits using robo-signed court documents,” said the CFPB. In terms of the companies’ allegedly illegal litigation practices, the CFPB accused the pair of misrepresenting their intention to prove debts they sued consumers over. They also allegedly sued or threatened to sue consumers past the statute of limitations. Further, the companies allegedly ...

The Consumer Mortgage Coalition recently told the CFPB one way to improve the bureau’s proposed regulation having to do with “successors in interest” is to eliminate the requirement to make successorship determinations when they are not necessary. The CFPB’s goal in this regard is to make loss mitigation more available to successors. However, the CMC said in a recent memo to the bureau that loss mitigation does not always require a successorship determination. “If a claimant ... cannot keep the loan reasonably free of default and the servicer will not pursue due-on-sale enforcement, there is no per se need to determine successorship,” said the trade group. “Of course, there may be a need to determine loss mitigation. Loss mitigation may ...

Wells Fargo this week reinstated the 640 minimum credit score requirement, following through on its threat to re-impose credit overlays due to its frustration with FHA’s republished loan-level certification proposal. Officials said the re-proposed version of the proposal, which was initially issued for comment in May, still disappoints in spite of industry input to put concerned FHA lenders at ease (See next story for background). In 2014, Wells dropped the minimum credit-score requirement to 600 for FHA borrowers after talks with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and policymakers. The FICO readjustment applies to Wells’ FHA retail purchase loans, aligning it with the 640 minimum credit score requirement for the bank’s correspondent business. In a previous statement, Wells reiterated the need for clearer rules in order to ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently saw its long-running attempt to recover $179 million from a bankrupt FHA lender come to a disappointing close, receiving only a little over half-a-million dollars after liquidation. HUD’s Inspector General gave the agency the green light to book its share of funds available to pay an $89.9 million HUD claim against the now-defunct lender Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, ending further action against the company. In 2006, whistleblowers filed a “qui tam” lawsuit in federal district court in Georgia alleging that TBW and Home America Mortgage had falsely certified and approved poorly underwritten loans for FHA insurance. In 2009, the two mortgage lenders filed for bankruptcy separately but were later consolidated by the court into one bankruptcy case. In May 2010, the Department of Justice, on behalf of HUD, filed a ...